Why Bollywood copies so blatantly from Hollywood

Chai se jaada Kittli garam hai...

I used to scoff at the bolly figures about how they make movies whose storylines are directly lifted from Hollywood blockbusters.

I still do, of course. But now I understand why this is the case. It is obvious to all that the indian mass, the target audience for most bolly 'hit' movies, is not sophisticated enough to be watching english movies. So it is a bleedingly obvious business choice to not spend any money on script developments, and instead focus the resources on things that add value to the mass audience... frills like sleazy dances, sexy models and outfits, and pushy promotions.

But still, I have lost my cine-reverence to many supposedly stars, including Amitabh (he has regained my reverence for different reasons), Dimple, Rekha, etc. Take this for an example; Not too long after 'The Others' got its acclaim, I came across a hindi movie promo that showed Dimple enacting some scenes that were soo similar to The Others that I knew it for sure of the plagiarism. And guess what Dimple said: "I have not played such a movie before in my life. It's clearly the best movie I have ever played." Not only did she lose her credibility to people like me, but also she seriously deprecated her movie career by saying something as stupid as that. She had played some really really important roles, many pro-feminine, and was acclaimed for them. And now she is vouching for an original copy that is not even worth vouching for...

This phenomenon has been seen much in Hollywood too... So many remakes are being done... some I remember off the top of my head are: The Ladykillers (Tom Hanks), Godzilla, The Red Dragon (From 'Manhunt' in the 80s), etc. But these retain originalilty in the sense that they still have an innovative perspective at the old version, or a creative adaptation of the old script. It's not like through and through copy/paste job.

Anyway, i know u're gonna say... I know all this, I dont need to be reading this- it's nothing new. You're right. But let me at least write it out, coz things run a bit slow in my head. There are a lot of speed bumps up there.